Mission:To tell stories about the natural world that promote social consciousness.

Travel Log

Last Trip:Japan, to make a film with documentarian Dustin Lynn about the effects of the country's overfishing.

Favorite Trip:I went to Ecuador in 2007 with a group of photographers and artists to witness the social and ecological effects of the toxic waste that results from oil drilling in the Amazon rain forest.

Dream Trip: T_aking the Trans-Siberian Railway (I love trains, and I'm fascinated by the 'Stans from an ecological standpoint). And I'd really like to see Ladakh._

CNT: How do you think the green movement is faring at the moment?

De Rothschild: It's not working. Huge progress has been made in terms of awareness of the issues, but the message isn't resonating with the masses because it's seen as elitist. The steps people are being told to take have financial barriersbuy a Toyota Prius, put a $7,000 solar panel on your roof. People think, How can I buy a Prius when I'm struggling to pay my mortgage?

CNT: So how does a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty speak to the average person?

De Rothschild: I'm using my resources to persuade people to alter their lifestyle in a way that isn't expensive or a drudge. For example, I'm currently making a television series for the Sundance Channel in which I follow everyday products from their sources all the way to the shop shelves.
I was shocked to discover that a T-shirt can be called organic if it's made of organic cotton but dyed with toxic chemicals.

CNT: What's our role in all this?

De Rothschild: We should question where stuff comes from because as consumers we have the power to change businesses' supply chains by creating a demand for products that are produced sustainably.

CNT: Tell me about your upcoming ocean voyage.

De Rothschild: I'm planning to sail from Sydney to San Francisco on the Plastiki, a vessel made in part from plastic bottles, to draw attention to the amount of plastic in our oceans and our absurd dependence on bottled water. It takes between three and five liters of water to make a one-liter bottle of the stuff. It's nuts. I'll be visiting the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, an ocean "landfill" twice the size of Texas.

CNT: You're a modern-day explorer. Are you inspired by any historical figures?

De Rothschild:Plastiki is influenced by Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki voyage across the Pacific, but in general I'm not. In England, there's an obsession with explorers like Robert Scott of the Antarctic. He's so revered that normal people have no connection to him. I'm trying to do the opposite with my adventuresI'm making them relevant and accessible to people.

CNT: What worries you most about the environment?

De Rothschild: What I call our nature deficiency disorder. Ever since the agricultural revolution, we've seen nature as a commodity we can control. This lulls us into a false sense of security, and then nature rears its head and a tsunami or a hurricane happens and we realize, momentarily, how vulnerable we are, only to return to the "we'll be all right" mentality soon after. We need to understand that the earth's ecosystems are intrinsically linked. It's like a game of Jenga: If you remove one piecesharks from the ocean, say, which we're fairly near doingthe whole thing will eventually come crashing down.

CNT: What's your view on carbon offsetting?

De Rothschild: You mean carbon off-putting? It salves our conscience, but it doesn't solve the problem. Though if it makes us pause and consider our habits, it's worth doing.